About this Partnership

About the Partner

Background 

Digital Divide Data was founded with the idea that the world's poorest citizens can produce their own solutions to poverty in the new global economy if they have access to the knowledge, skills, and opportunities that power economic growth and lasting change around the world. DDD bridges the divide that separates young people from opportunity by providing disadvantaged youth—the physically disabled and rural poor--in Cambodia and Laos with the education and training they need to deliver world-class, competitively priced IT services to global clients and acquire essential business management skills and break the cycle of poverty.

DDD are an innovative, internationally acclaimed non-profit organization that operates with a strong business model and a 'double bottom line' approach to development.  DDD focus on sustainable business growth has helped us generate more than $7.5 million in revenues.  And  on social impact delivers lasting change for our employees. Over the past six years, we have trained 2,000 people with marketable skills, and more than 400 of our staff have graduated from entry-level jobs to employment opportunities that earn them six times the average income in Cambodia. We currently employ over 650 people delivering digitization work from Cambodia and Laos.




Type of partnership

As a social enterprise, DDD relies on its digitization business to both create and sustain our impact. We deliver high-quality work to clients that relies on cutting-edge technology and processes: learning to convert content for e-Books, for example. The crux of our impact is in developing the skills of our staff in Laos and Cambodia, but we need support to build this capacity. As DDD aims to grow a self-sustaining business that is managed and operated locally, we will rely on the experience and technical expertise of capacity-building Fellows recruited and vetted by partners such as EWB.



Partnership Objectives:

  1. Through this partnership, DDD will bring on an EWB engineer in one of its Southeast Asian offices to build the technical capacity of our local teams, to enhance their individual skills and earning potential, and to empower the organization’s work, enabling it to impact more people.
  2. Through this partnership, EWB will have an impact on the disadvantaged youth employed by DDD and on the local economy. The EWB engineer will create a sustaining legacy through the newly established processes and capacities he or she develops.


http://www.digitaldividedata.org/

 


Achievements and Focus

Digital Divide Data, Project Management Capacity Building-eBooks service implementation and production process improvement.

Why is this necessary?

  1. To capture all the rapidly changing technological changes in the industry and implement a quality and dynamic production process.
  2. Manage eBooks sampling and quoting requests by working with DDD partners in India and United States.
  3. Set up a DDD eBooks quality standard


What are the goals of the project?

The variuos goals of this are 

  • Successfully implement the Digital Publishing - eBooks initiative as the next major service to be provided by DDD
  • Manage the Digital Publishing (eBooks) partners when outsourcing samples and projects. This is done because DDD still isn’t mature enough technically, and it also can’t handle large volumes
  • Build the project management capacity of the project managers at Digital Divide Data (DDD
  • Co-project manage and implement DDD’s service blue prints or service implementation toolkits for all of its digitisation services. This will be done with the South East Asia Director of Operations and Project Management.
  • Improve client interaction exposure for all Cambodian and Laos project managers of DDD by initiating a one month experience program with the sales team based at the DDD’s North American offices.


What has been accomplished thus far?

  • Transition eBooks price estimation, sampling and partner (outsourcing management) to a five member project management team in Vientaine
  • Created a pilot project work plan for the Vientiane eBooks service team
  • Transition eBooks research and development in to a pilot production phase in Vientiane.
  • Trained staff and walked through live project cost and time estimation requests by our sales staff in North America


Where to next?

  • Business operations process mapping and improvement guide.
  • DDD services blue prints. These will be used at potential new DDD offices around the world

EWB Field Volunteers

Current Regional Project Management Officer / Capacity Builder: Ashwini Kumar Alluri



Ash will be working in the capacity of Project Manager in Cambodia and Laos with Digital Divide Data. Like most International Development work, he believes he will be using his broad technical knowledge, influential personal skills and experiences to support and mentor his colleagues manage projects. Ash's experience in the realm of International Development in the Philippines as part of AusAID's Australian Youth Ambassadors for Development program, inspired him to pursue another volunteer project. By day, Ash practices as a User Experience Designer and the rest of the time he tries hard to be a ubiquitous voice over artist with an Indian accent, and of course, solve all pressing social issues with it.

Software Supprt Analysist - Brenden Siebert 
 Our field volunteer Brenden Sieber is working as Software Support Analysist  with our  community partner Digtal Divide data in Cambodia and his major duties are 

  • Build skills in their local staff for requirements gathering (imprve their ability to clearly define internal client needs for product development;
  • Build skills in documentation of requirements for DDD’s clients;
  • Analyse and Develop tools for the future.


    •  Previus Volunteer
    Eric Mousset- IT skills enchancement